Love it..
Just sent it to some relatives sitting at an assembly..
...................... 
...OUTLAW
Beliefs Tied to Geography
by OnTheWayOut 87 Replies latest jw friends
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OUTLAW
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thetrueone
Richard Dawkins explains it another way.
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talesin
And if you were born in certain secular areas of Europe, you'd probably be atheist or agnostic.
* raises her atheist's hand *
or Canada, or any other part of the world ...
t /
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ziddina
"God has many skins,...." sabastious
face/palm slap...!!!
Really???
Have you EVER studied - or even read something OTHER than Watchtower literature - on the subject of Hinduism?? Buddhism?? Shintoism???
ALL of those religions have GODDESSES - and MANY DEITIES...
For that matter, the Israelites had GODDESSES BEFORE they picked up that Middle-Eastern war god as their 'prime' deity...
And don't even get me started on the goddesses arrogated into "sainthood" in Catholicism....
Or the indications within the bible itself of earlier forms of goddess worship - after all, many of those goddesses that the bible writers railed against were worshipped long BEFORE the bible god's worship arose.
That belief that somehow ALL of the vast variety of deities worshipped throughout the tens [to hundreds] of thousands of years of human history, are "versions" of a Middle-Eastern, Bronze-Age nomads' "god" that didn't even show up until the last 3,500 years, is beyond clueless - and TOTALLY out of touch with archaeological and paleo-archaeological discoveries...
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Crisis of Conscience
Damn it! I'm trying to hang on to being in the agnostic category. But these threads keep chipping away at it! LOL
Thanks for sharing the pic OTWO.
CoC
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FlyingHighNow
I'm lucky. My dad embraced his native American side and that kind of spirituality. He was a scientist. Not all scientists are atheists.
Mom raised us in the Episcopal Church.Never talked about her own beliefs. If you asked her a question, she usually sent you off on a journey to answer it yourself. Only after you had an answer you were happy with, did she tell you her feelings. She was a spiritual person. When I was a teenager Mom read the tarot, palms and she read astrological charts. She let us go to any church or read anything we wanted about anything, hinduism, yoga, out of body experiences you name it.
And I'm pretty much what I always was, just a spiritual person who appreciates mystery, who embraces universalism. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, Morgan City, LA and Atlanta, Ga.
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jay88
NeonMadman: since it seems to imply that belief systems are wrong because of how they were acquired, and not because of their merits as truth claims.
Unless critical thinking is first and foremost, Unless a "belief system" has built-in corrective measures as far as testing its own truthfulness, then is would be correct to assume it is wrong.
edit: of course these corrective measures would be biase to support the "belief system's" viewpoint.
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FlyingHighNow
Crisis of Conscience, there is something in between the two extremes of fundamentalism and very staunch atheism. I hope you won't let this kind of thread chip away at your agnosticism. I like the quote from the late, great actress Tallulah Bankhead, "I'm a high Episcopaleon agnostic with a deep reverence for mystery." She was one of the more colorful, yet classy, southern belles to ever walk this earth. You can find a lot of interesting quotes and tidbits about her unconventional life in libraries and on the internet. Very few people make it through life without being agnostic at some point. Many people hit that in their teens or after the loss of a loved one. For me it comes and goes. I am comfortable with it.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a higher percentage of atheists among ex born/raised in ex jw's than in the general population. It seems like when they find out the mean, nasty, worse than Satan, bully god they were raised with is a fake, then sometimes they abandon any trust that there is a god or gods or more spiritual beliefs. It bothers me that a lot of the threads assume that all enlightened scientists are atheists. If there is truth in that, then fine, present that picture. But it isn't true. There are atheists and there are believers in the world of science. Like my dad, many of them believe in the evolutionary procress, but still believe in some kind of God.
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ziddina
"Sometimes I wonder if there is a higher percentage of atheists among ex born/raised in ex jw's than in the general population. ...." Flying High Now
This comment is frequently made on this board, but again it shows the unfamiliarity with religion in general that exists among many ex-Jehovah's Witnesses....
From what I've observed of the atheist community, atheists can - and do - come from every religion on the face of the planet...
Again, from personal observation, atheists appear to come from a disproportionately large segment of the "fundamentalist" religions - Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, Baptists, Apostolic Christian Church, Church of Christ, Christian Israelite Church, various other Evangelical Protestants, fundamentalist Mormons, MOST Islamic sects, and undoubtedly even some Hindus and Buddhists....
So, to claim that the Watchtower Corporation is somehow "generating" atheists, is to ignore the characteristics that the Jehovah's Witness cult has in common with all these other fundamentalist forms of "faith"....
In my opinion and based on my personal experience, it is often a combination of things -
(a) the realization of the extremely fallible and flawed nature of the people within the church/congregation/synagogue/mosque/temple,
(b) the realization that the stories in the Talmud/Bible/Qu'ran/Sacred Texts are actually mythology - that they are scientifically INaccurate,
(c) that the mores of the ancient peoples no longer apply, that the requirements of the holy books were applicable to a much more primitive human society, but are no longer applicable today...
Also, the violence that tends to arise from blind faith is enough to turn many people away from the deity/deities of their childhood and towards an atheistic viewpoint.
And..... Totally off the subject....
Just to be a brat......
Here's a funny list that I picked up at this website: http://www.evilbible.com/Top_Ten_List.htm
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God. [or a personal failure or lack of "faith" on YOUR part.... ]
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.Number 10 is my favorite....
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botchtowersociety
More than 90% of the time your religion is an accident of birth.